back to the big picture i'm tom arbonne coming up in this half hour as japan slowly tries to recover from the fukushima disaster a new report is suggesting that yet another japanese nuclear plant could be facing a disaster if japan really willing to continue its nuclear power program knowing all of the potential risks also republicans in washington think that ending the bush tax cuts will hurt small business the facts say otherwise what happened during the clinton years and why the republicans refuse to acknowledge it and in tonight's daily take you on forty acres a land of slightly useless still well below and freedom from liberal america and

it's time to pack your bags and head up north but make sure you file your secession papers first. and a yellow bird like mascot the japanese officials are hoping will keep children safe from radiation poisoning in the disaster zones around the fukushima daiichi plant leaflets are being passed around japan featuring keep it on who warns children about the dangers of radiation and tells them to stay away from pools and ditches of radioactive waste countless children in japan are at risk of developing cancer as a result of the fukushima meltdown last year according to a recent study from fukushima medical university thirty six percent of the children in the area have overgrown thyroid glands leaving them prone to cancer japan. only

recognise the twenty month anniversary of the start of the fukushima nuclear crisis and today only one nuclear power plant is in operation in that country and geologists are warning it's sitting on a fault line geologists at tokyo's toyo university are urging the japanese government to halt operations at the oily nuclear plant and to conduct a research underground to see if it's in danger asked of the plant should remain open one of the lead geologist said it would be a very silly option we would have learned nothing from fukushima i'm afraid we would see a repeat one day and quote since the fukushima crisis began several thousand japanese citizens have been rallying in the streets routinely against nuclear power demanding that all the plants be shut down. and so the government has responded with keep it so what's the latest on focus shima and the rest of the nuclear problems coming out of japan and the rest of the world for that matter kevin camps joins me now he's the radioactive waste watchdog at beyond nuclear kevin welcome

back i found thank you great to have you tell us about the oil nuclear power plant well like you said it's the only nuclear power plant to be reactivated after march eleventh two thousand and eleven two reactors have been fired out that was in june of this year so there was actually a month where there were no operating reactors in japan so four reactors were destroyed at fukushima dai ichi in the catastrophe but there are fifty operable reactors in the country so two are operating and forty eight remain remain closed down and the two in this oil plant are on a fault line well japan is riddled with fault lines both on land and just off the coastline and harvey wasserman who's a long time nuclear watchdog in the united states i think it was in one thousand nine hundred seven i heard him speak and he said future generations will look back and see nuclear power plants as markers for earthquake fault lines in a pan especially so but here in the united states we have many nuclear reactors close the fault lines on top of fault lines and o.e. is unfortunately very likely on top of an active fault line well that was my follow

up question on the nuclear plants the united states are facing the same situation as do we have account well many i mean out on the california coast you've got diablo canyon with two reactors you've got san onofre with two reactors near the san andreas fault and major fault lines and in fact all the time in recent years there have been discoveries of new fault lines so just off of the canyon very close by within a mile or a few miles a new fault line was discovered called the shoreline fault line and up at indian point very close to new york city within twenty five miles of city limits new fault lines were discovered ironically enough indian point in new york is perhaps the most risky reactor there's two reactors there in terms of seismic risks and because the plant wasn't built strongly enough to a step. and then it was just regarded as it's in the east there are no seismic risks it wasn't built well and now those fault lines right nearby so it could crack the same way the washington monument did when we had a small earthquake here in d.c. or that very earthquake you mentioned august of two thousand and eleven actually

did damage to the nuclear plant in virginia. north anna with two units the radioactive waste storage especially was damaged down there what's the latest on persistent radiation coming out of japan particularly coming here to the united states we the last time we talked fish were starting to show up on the west coast with high levels of radioactive cesium in them and our government was turning off their detectors and stopping their evaluations as i recall what's going on just in recent days headlines in japan the federal government of japan cannot understand why the radiation levels are so high in certain species of fish that are still being caught off the coast of japan and it's something we talked about early on in the catastrophe there's this phenomenon called bio magnification bio concentration it's where the big fish eat the little fish and the little fish have eaten the plankton the radioactivity concentrates up the food chain we're at the top of the food chain and again the regulations in the u.s. are worse than the regulations in japan in terms of radioactive so imagine and

they're keeping radioactive fish out of the food chain they measure every fish or they seem to be but there's problems they're not catching everything for sure we've seen that intern opal as well there are system set up but there are problems with the system the difference between japan and the united states is kind of startling in japan at this point permissible level of radioactivity in food is one hundred back a rolls per kilogram about radioactive disintegration per second so one hundred per kilogram in japan in the united states the permissible level is one thousand two hundred so if your hands limits are twelve times stronger than ours which means that we could very certainly be importing food from japan that's considered unfit to eat there and be with the japanese on. sell to their own people they'll sell it to us because. that's a group that's insane. japan is deploying the c.l.o. mascot. if i'm saying it right to warn kids about radiation. what is the

situation in seriously for kids around fukushima and and frankly around the world i mean the even the us west coast downwind of. stream i guess currents of this thing children are very vulnerable to radioactivity much more so than adult white males which is the standard reference man in the united states for radiation protections women are more more vulnerable than men pregnant women and the fetus are the most vulnerable of all so unfortunately the standards have been established for twenty five year old white male who weighs one hundred sixty pounds this dates back to the one nine hundred forty s. one nine hundred fifty s. so they're very vulnerable heartbreaking stories and fukushima parents will not let their children play outside because they're concerned about the radioactive contamination families have been thrown out of their own resources to check the school lunches unfortunately children are living in fear of radiation and it's.

every day life for large numbers of children one of the very startling headlines in recent weeks has been that a third of the children in fukushima prefecture have knowledge of wools and cysts on their thyroids this could be a precursor for thyroid pathology thyroid cancer disease on heard of in children apart from exposure to things like radioactive iodine one thirty one we saw that it turned epidemic numbers of childhood thyroid pathology incidents that continue. to this day children were exposed in utero as young children and the damage done to their thyroid will persist and those were early warning signs of further things like you know cesium heart some of these others the right term noble heart chernobyl are what you get with the rev up a kevin thank you so much for being with us and for the great work that you're doing and much appreciate it kevin cams. and now onto

a nice little takeaway from last week's election voters across america took a major step forward last week electing the most diverse congress in our nation's history one hundred thirteenth congress set to begin in january of next year will have a different look than any other congress before as the center for american progress details this morning three new african-american five new asian american ten new and twenty four new women were elected to congress last tuesday plus two hindus a buddhist and an atheist were elected as well and finally four new l.g.b. team members of congress are coming to washington d.c. as well while we have a long way to go as a nation to make our self government more diverse we should all be proud of what we accomplished last tuesday giving sections of the population of voice in government that they've never had in the past it's quite the forces in a phobia and bigotry speaking louder than ever america progress can't be stopped and for once congress is starting to look like the rest of america.

just. it's the good the bad of the very very quite jealously ugly the good tesla remember the first presidential debate when mitt romney called the american electric car company as a loser. but don't forget you put ninety billion dollars like fifty years worth of breaks into into solar and wind just so that cylindrical and fisker a tesla inner one i mean if i had a friend who said you don't just pick the winners and losers you pick the losers sorry mitt it looks like the loser and tesla and obama are the winners that's because tesla's model s. car has just won the prestigious motor trend car of the year old ward has been given out since one nine hundred forty nine by the popular auto magazine and this marks the first time in the history of the award that the winning car did not have

an internal combustion. proof that america can still make great and innovative things the bad quality solomon solomon a twenty year old arizona and was upset when she heard the president obama won re-election and she was downright at all rage when she heard that her husband daniel solomon didn't bother to vote in the election apparently all that pent up anger became too much to handle so mrs solomon decided to take it out on her husband by running him over to police mrs solomon felt that her family was going to face hardship of the president was reelected and she was only trying to scare or husband not actually run him over husband is currently in critical condition. and the very very ugly ryan fish fish your head of the right wing anti-gay marriage equality american family association doesn't want the republican party to become more inclusive and his radio show yesterday fisher said it's time to clamp down on immigration because hispanics voted for president. he also said that hispanics are

socialist by nature as they come from mexico which is a socialist country did you know issue around say that republicans can pander all i want to his panics to immigrants and it will not work and quote. let's hope republicans choose to become more inclusive and choose not to listen officials collins because they are here fairly. coming up are you a fan of snowmobiling and snow covered hills you like to live in the vast wilderness do you think president obama winning reelection signaled the end of america as we know it and maybe you should move to the frozen north i'll explain why tonight's daily take.

you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so for lengthly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harkin welcome to the big picture.

here is mitt romney trying to figure out the name of that thing that we americans call a dollar. i'm sorry i'm just a guy who cares an awful lot about you sir are a fool you know what kind of mind their terrorist cells in your neighborhood all want to give us aid to feature isn't he a liberal a christian apologist i can see your beliefs about it but it's going to suffer to distract us from what you and i should care about because they're a profit driven industry that sells a sensationalistic garbage he calls it breaking news i'm having martin and we're going to break that.

in other news republicans on capitol hill are opposed to letting the bush tax cuts expire at the end of the year arguing that the expiration would cause tax hikes for america's small businesses as a couple days ago house speaker john boehner said quote raising taxes on small businesses were killed jobs in america it's as simple as that and quote well it really isn't that simple in fact economic evidence paints a very different picture under the clinton presidency the top marginal tax rate was thirty nine point six percent or what it would be if the bush tax cuts expire at the end of the year despite that rate small businesses were still able to grow twice as fast during the clinton presidency than they did while bush was in the white house even if you take off the last disastrous year of the bush administration from adequate. if republicans really want to protect the interests

of small businesses and strengthen our economy and shouldn't they let the bush tax cuts expire joining me now is neil aspirate an entrepreneur and host of truth for america neil welcome hey tom they're having me back thanks for joining us neil pardon my coffee. why do you why do you want to see small businesses fail why not why not bring them the success the bill clinton did that's why we got to lower taxes tom everybody who wants to raise taxes has never created a job in their lives because it's absolutely insane what they're saying you talk about bill clinton well first of all he had inherited the regular economy so just about anybody could be successful going to him he was a disaster no no if we had had this because we had a very good crash the biggest stock market crash the biggest the highest unemployment rate since the great depression in the reagan economy it was after reagan went off axis and i would say as a result of the next. so but we'll disagree on that but what we can't what we will

agree on is that it was a very different time twenty years ago america was the world's largest exporter america was the world's largest manufacturer which we still are just by a hair and we're going to lose that here very soon to our competitors our competitors are kicking our butts we need to do something differently nobody who has ever created a job in their lives would ever be advocating for raising taxes so while i am going to work neal be you know i've hired probably at least two hundred people in my life when or i realize that and i've found i think we should raise taxes because i remember a time in this country back in the seventies one of the first businesses i had that really did well my c.p.a. came to me and said you've got to stop taking money out of this business your head it will hit in the forty you're going to hit the fifty percent tax bracket pretty soon back that was seventy four percent of the top and to keep the money in the company and grow it we did we grew it substantially hired eighteen people all over . time your let's bring you back into your lives you know i'm not unique neal

that's what small businesses you never did that's why business was so good in the fifty's and sixty's and seventy's and eighty's until reagan dropped those tax rates because people kept small but that's why america's downtowns and malls were filled with small businesses now they're all gone. tom i have eight pages here of companies that's made layoffs significant layoffs since tuesday i mean this is a bloodbath out there why is not my liberal friends of friends marching in the streets because of all these people losing their jobs twenty five million unemployed and underemployed americans this is disgraceful there's never been a time in our history when the administration in our job creators have been at war with each other and then it was happening and we want to raise tatars never been a time in our history and f.d.r. said they hate me and i welcome their hatred there you know we have seen our job creators we hate our job creators. back then and yes they if you want to call them job creators you want to use that frank luntz focus group term for rich people yes

and and but i'm not i'm not buying that nonsense and you know we had a top tax rate are you going ninety one percent using the one nine hundred fifty s. the one nine hundred sixty s. in the one nine hundred seventy s. and those three decades each one of those decades had been had a g.d.p. growth over three point two percent they were the strongest economic growth in the history of the united states with a ninety one percent when we're having this why are we having all these people laying people off right now you know what i have to do right now and i really don't look forward to this maybe you think give me some advice but this april when i have to renew my health insurance i have to tell my people that their health coverage is going to cost a lot more they're going to get a lot less and then if you tell me with a raise taxes i'm going to tell people are going to lose their job what you should have done nailers should have fought for their single pair health care that we're just just wait another year and a half until obamacare chaos and i mean what a kick that a lot faster and guys like you weren't fighting it. it's clear that you and i both . housing our health care is going to get less expensive and then you're not going

to be paying taxes like x. is for your absolutely that's that's what we're losing our competitive edge you're saying you got to bring our job creators you know we're out of there i over in china let's bring them up yeah well i'm with you i will and we will leave on this point of agreement let's bring our jobs home neal aspirates thanks a lot perfect thanks. so it appears there are tens of thousands of americans across the nation who want their states to withdraw from the union a process called secession apparently because that whole secession thing once a well the last time it was tried back during the abraham lincoln administration since the election the white house's website has been inundated with petitions to grant peaceful secession to more than twenty states mostly from people in the south

but also from right wing wacky doodles of blue states like new york new jersey and michigan as one petition from texas which is received more than seventy thousand signatures reads given that the state of texas maintains a balanced budget as the fifteenth largest economy in the world it is practically feasible for texas to withdraw from the union and to do so would protect its citizens standard of living and receive cure of their rights and liberties in accordance with the original ideas and beliefs of our founding fathers which are no longer being reflected by the federal government an official with the republican party in texas is also endorse the idea peter morris the treasurer of the harden county republican party called for secession in his post-election news letter writing texas was once its own country and many texans already think a nationalist terms about their state i should remind texas live under the same government let each go her own way and peace sign a free trade agreement among the states and we can avoid this gut wrenching spectacle every four years texas governor rick perry is no stranger to texas

a session struck either back in two thousand and nine infamously said this. texas so you think. he came to you eighty forty. years and. it's. good for you. that the reason. that if washington continues on its american rock. i guess he found out a little historical tidbit about texas in one of those school textbooks recently rewritten by the reactionary texas school board clearly four years of president obama has been too much for some of the loopier conservatives across america to endure a year for the good old days when private health insurance companies could deny them lifesaving care due to preexisting conditions or when women were guaranteed to make a smaller paycheck than men for doing the same work for america were gays and lesbians

are regarded as second class citizens but secession is such a drastic move sure the nation might be better off without a dozen or so red states standing in the way of things like single payer health care carbon caps and employer run unions sure it might be best in the long run if the rod and rand paul crazies are let loose to once and for all try to create their own libertarian paradise complete with daily pledges to the flag of iran just so they can see for themselves why this sort of society has failed everywhere it's ever been tried any time in the history of the world. sure society should have done peacefully wouldn't be the worst thing for the for the world or for the rest of us here in america but i can't help but worry for those hapless progressives in cities like athens austin austin texas or athens georgia who are surrounded by those rabid right wing secessionists or even the good democrats who live in rural hard red

areas but watch us on satellite t.v. and are hanging on for dear life friends and family serves there are no red states or blue states we're all purple states we both conservatives progressives and everything in between some states just have one of the other in greater quantities states and we can't condemn red state progresses to the libertarian dist opiah of the secessionist want to create. a humane. so what's to be done. luckily for all of us are progressive neighbor to the north canada as a solution or at least so we hear on the internet this number of reports surfaced post-election that canada might consider offering up a deal to conservatives in america who just can't handle and america governed by barack obama so far these reports of yet to go beyond internet rumor about being confirmed by the canadian government to given that actual facts bear little

significance in the conservative world view there is some buzz that some conservatives are already looking into this refuge offer as an alternative to secession and another civil war according to this so-called deal for disgruntled americans canada is opening up its northernmost territory none of it to anyone who this from the states who just can't stomach another four years of president obama's ruthless tyrannical moderate rule each immigrant will receive forty acres of land conveniently located near open water and arctic ocean and canada is also generously offering a use that will be able in a sled to any new comers as well no doubt that life in none of what fending for yourself without any help from the nanny state will take some getting used to especially for those southerners who hail from states that receive far more government benefits than they pay in tax revenue not to mention the weather is a little different none of it than in florida but the weather woes should last too

long global warming after all could soon turn it into a climate like today's new york city might only take a generation or two or three and hopefully a deal can be worked out between the new oligarchy of none of it and the canadian government to ensure that none of the horrors of single payer health care which all canadians have access to ever cross the border into that libertarian refuge in the arctic. i think this is the best solution for all the conservatives get their freedom from president obama while progress is still here in the united states find an electorate much more receptive to their ideals and thanks to one local fox news station in oklahoma soon to be secessionists now i know the easiest way to make it to canada without getting stuck in traffic. i know a lot of people said that if their candidate lost the election they'd be moving to canada not sure why but that was some of the folks promises out there is let me give you the quickest and direct us route to canada from tulsa you leave out of

tulsa here you take highway seventy five northbound ok seventy five northbound up through kansas past kansas city when you get into. watch for that junction for interstate twenty nine because then you want to take twenty nine out of omaha nebraska right here you want to take interstate twenty nine then to get up through sue falls south dakota then up in the north dakota and literally i twenty nine to go to the canadian border. let's wish him well and that's the way it is tonight tuesday november thirteenth two thousand and twelve. for more information on any of the stories we covered visit our web sites at tom arbonne dot com or dot com and if you missed any of tonight show you can watch it in h.d. on hulu at hulu dot com slash big picture also check out our two youtube channels there are links of thom hartmann dot com also to. the different ways you can send us your feedback and don't forget democracy is not a spectator sport it requires participation get out there get active tag your

it. the official. language. of.

the plant that was responsible for causing the world's worst industrial disaster. had been abandoned in a condition where it had become a source of pollution the most recent study that was done shows that this water pollution spreading. more than hundred. dollars. unpunished.